


Three Lines to Cross

by Anonymous



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Implied Sexual Content, Meteorstuck, Multi, Mystery, Temporary Amnesia, Troll Romance (Homestuck)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 17:41:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13171959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Three trolls wake up in a room with no idea how they got there, or who they are.They proceed to figure out no answers to those burning issues, but they sure do have fun in the process of trying!





	Three Lines to Cross

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt from the 2012 Homestuck Shipping Olympics, for the genre-blending theme: _Ontological Mystery+Exploitation flick for Karkat♥Terezi♠Gamzee_. (And I added Gamzee♦Karkat; it made sense with canon.)  
>  Wikipedia on 'exploitation film': An exploitation film is a film that attempts to succeed financially by exploiting current trends, niche genres, or lurid content. (I probably did not hit this one in any but the silliest way.)  
> TV Tropes on 'ontological mystery': The characters are locked in, have no idea how they got there, why they're there, or how to get out, nor do they know exactly who is behind their predicament, if anyone.
> 
> Once upon a time, e.g. around June 2012, there was no canon Gamzee/Terezi and Gamzee/Karkat still had some hope attached to it. So just ... think as little about the canon issues as possible. Happy AU time!

* * *

  
3 minutes  
One of the boys woke up yelling, loud enough that both other two trolls woke too. Each of them moved away from the other two instantly, then sat and studied the room. And each other, but they tried not to be obvious about it.

 

5 minutes  
Footfalls echoed in the bare stone and metal of the large, empty room, accounting for most of the noise. They investigated the sterile-seeming walls and floors in search of an exit as quietly as possible, except when the long-horned boy struck out hard a few times, kicking and punching to test the wall's metal sheeting. They still kept careful, constant track of each other.

"This is probably silly," the girl announced, and stopped poking at the rivets in her third of the room. "I doubt _we_ are the ones we have to watch out for." Taller than the boy with nearly no horns, shorter than the one with the curving horns, more wiry than both, she stood with similar confidence - a kind that did its best to give no quarter. None of them could totally hide their wariness, though.

"We're alone and we woke up at the same time. Thanks for that, Nubby." He pulled a face that made her grin, and then patted his horns as if confirming their shape. She continued: "And now I'm going to come closer, because I have a suspicion. This will be a bit weird!"

The boys looked suspicious, but didn't protest. Nubby tensed as she approached him and definitely appreciated that she stopped a few metres away. She leaned forwards, hands clasped behind her back, and sniffed deeply and ostentatiously in his direction.

"Yeah, yeah it is fucking weird," he said, but relaxed a little.

"Now you, Clown!" she said, turning. He held himself high with aggression, teeth baring on reflex as she walked over, but deigned to restrain himself.

"If you really motherfucking must, Spikes." He sniffed at her too. "What do you get from this? I can't pick up any kind of ... seasonal thing like as to get us all up ons each other, even with us being half-naked."

"Oh, holy shit, don't even intimate that!" Nubby backed up a few paces, arms tight around his torso.

"I agree, there's no hint of drone season pheromones," Spikes said. "Whoever locked us in could have taken our shirts so that we couldn't identify ourselves by sign... The reason for my nasal research is because I have reason to believe that my sense of smell is unusually good. And as I suspected, there's some of my scent on you, and yours on me," she said, pointing to Nubby. "We must have known each other at least a bit." She turned back to the clown. "You and Nubby also have traces of each other's scents, so there was a connection there too. But there's a twist, Clown: There's no such olfactory exchange between the two of us!"

Clown held himself even taller, shifting his weight - not yet leaping towards her but so clearly ready for the fight. All teeth, he snarled, "Guess we didn't used to like each other all too motherfucking much."

Spikes beamed and put out her hand. "So let's not!"

Thrown off, he stared at the hand. "As in let's not what?"

"Let's not like each other, actively and with dedication. This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship!"

Clown, still staring, seemed to have a dawning certainty that hers was the most unlikely hand that could ever be. "Straight-up. Serious. No fronting," he said, as if ticking each one off a list.

"What the fuck?" Nubby contributed.

The way Clown shifted his weight was self-conscious now. "And ... not like I've got a thing to be scared of, right? Twig like you..."

"You might - maybe I have fistkind." Spikes wriggled her fingers. "Or a specialisation in pinkiekind, most feared and renowned of all." A little giggle sneaked out of him, partly in surprise; she thrust her hand out further and he grabbed and pumped it.

Then he threw her to the floor—almost, because, still wary, she twisted loose and counter-attacked from his back.

 

20 minutes  
"Seriously? Best hatefriends, and maybe you've literally known each other for fifteen minutes. And what is with the barkbeast method of bonding! Any more sniffing and it'll be the definitive clue that we're locked in here for being softsponge cullbait. So of course I'm staring, even if we SHOULD be focusing on escaping, god knows I should be trying to bring the focus back to that—"

Clown growled. "Which is what we've been saying since we up and stopped the roughhousing, if you'd fucking shut it and listen."

Spikes, just leaving off patting her hair back into place, cleared her throat. "To be fair, we did get carried away with the grappling. I don't even really blame you for all the staring, Nubby."

"Fucking 'fair' is how we both got a way better idea of each other than anything what we've got on this nubbed-down motherfucker." Clown sneered at him. "We showed each other some serious moves. But you, it's like _standing_ over there's all of what you can be with dreaming up." The arrangement of three was now different: Clown and Spikes had put their fight on hold and stepped but a few metres apart to ease their panting, while Nubby was still roughly in the middle of his third of the room.

"Because I'm saner - not hard - due to being pretty sure you don't treat friendship like something you pick out of a catalogue..." Nubby wound down this time and put up his hands in a peacemaking gesture, rolling his eyes. "But all right, it's your prerogative, I guess." He tucked his hands back under crossed arms. "It just looks deeply stupid from where I'm standing - sensibly, let me add, out of random attack's way."

Clown looked even more inclined to grab him by the neck and give a good shake. "So motherfucking far and all."

"Friendship isn't contagious, nookstain. It doesn't make a fucking difference where I stand."

"But remember!" Spikes said. "My theory is that you and I, and you and Clown, were at least acquaintances. Nubs..." She woundedly placed a hand over her heart. There was a bite mark with a few teal spots on that hand, and Clown licked his teeth. "Nubbity Nub-a-Nub-Nub. You don't think we could once have hung out, pre-amnesia?"

"Sure, all right, maybe! Maybe I was always hanging around you in the simple fascination of wondering, hey, how far is this blind-ass insaniac from being culled tonight?" — And then his face transformed, expression thrice as guilty as it had been irritable. You couldn't say something so potentially, fatally true to just anyone.

" _He's_ the one who's not supposed to like me!" Spikes pointed to the clown - taking another step closer so that her finger nearly went into one of his eyes, and he flinched. "Don't be rude."

"No, no offense, seriously. That sounded bad, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply I want you dead." Nubby took his first step closer. "But ... your eyes. Sorry. I couldn't exactly help noticing."

"I wasn't going to say nothing," Clown began smugly, to which she gave him a curious look and said, "Well, that's pretty dumb, ignoring the obvious so much!"

"Oh all right, no sympathies." He smiled, clapping her on the back. "So what's up with those two garbage globes stuck up your nug, and meanwhile you're still noticing fucking everything aside the fact you've got such chunks of uselessness all for your own?"

"Dude! Holy shit, no." Nubby strode over, all horror, like she might need support.

Spikes rolled her shoulders elaborately as if to shrug the words off, then leaned over and licked the clown from shoulder to jaw.

 

25 minutes and 9 seconds is 17 minutes 2 seconds more than my incredibly educated guess for when that would happen  
real proof terezis mind isnt all there atm  
"That was one part to irritate you, and one part demonstration. The reason I can see is that I use my senses of taste and smell," Spikes said. "Really! I know it sounds ridiculous. When I woke up here I could see my own face as clear as anything else in the room ... it took a minute to remember how to ignore my immediate scent to focus on other things."

"In my fucking neck!" Clown said. He kept wriggling like he'd had an intensely private experience with an electric socket.

"Don't be a big wiggler about it."

"Wow, fucking wow. And you also expect us to believe you just took a detailed count of his neckspores?" Nubby looked her over, arms still around himself, making him a tight, self-focused hub even after having come, and stayed, closer to them. But he didn't actually sound that disbelieving. "It's ridiculous. Except..." He did some sniffing. "You're right. We really have rubbed off on each other at some point. And you smelled that from all the way across the room, and it's obvious you... Uh."

Spikes raised an eyebrow.

"Can't see," he said, nearly so gently as to be impolite. "So I believe you? That's, uh. I guess that's a cool way to get around culling. Points for style." The smile was already an apology, but he added anyway, "Sorry for making a big deal of it in the first place."

"As well you should be!" Spikes said. It fell flat when he backed off again, tucking himself well away into his folded arms with a judicious expression.

"Damn, brother, she is playing. Look at this girl, how do you take her seriously?" The clown jumped straight back onto the heights of aggravation. "Is your plan to be one big old cringe forever?"

"Hey, as previously established, you two are the ones who dislike each other, as I keep at a sensible distance. I'm just..." Another step away, hands more firmly pressed under his elbows.

Clown bristled more. "Cold," he snapped.

Nubby cocked an eyebrow, then shrugged. Yeah, so? Clown looked righteously enraged - then rattled - then angry again.

"So get a word about it out from between your stubby little teeth, you fucking genius," Clown said, grabbed him, and rubbed vigorously over his bare back.

 

40 minutes in and bullshit approaches at LIGHT SPEED  
The kicking was, by now, desultory. "Fucking quit it! I told you I'm the sane one!" Nubby said.

"I up and told you that Deadeye's on to a good thing," Clown began, and growled as Spikes tacked on, "I'm also going on the assumption that I'm clever. It feels right!"

Nubby stopped pushing away from the grip the other boy had on him in order to laugh, probably because he was still stunned, and the hand on his back started rubbing again. Clown was deeply serious about it. "She gave me her hand," Clown told him, "and you might as well take mine. We know you and me even used to share space - she said. Could be so that we do it again. Especially as it's being there's nothing else here to have."

"It's weird. Is all I'm saying. Really weird. Thanks. Are you serious? Oh my god." A study in awkwardness, Nubby raised a hand to hide his blush on one side; the other was covered by how close he was pressed to Clown.

"You could make your quadrant official," said Spikes, watching with blatant fascination what was at least three-quarters of a cuddle. "Perhaps our captors will come to conduct a proper moirallegiance bonding, and it will open an avenue for escape!"

"She's playing," Clown provided. "And she's the one all propositioning people mouth-to-nugstem, so I don't see where it can be she has a leg to stand on."

"Yeah, well, guy, neither do we. Half-naked ... fucking pettings - I told you that's, that's pretty fucking weird. I don't know why I'm not shaking worse now that I've lost not only my memory but my grip on basic tenets of society."

"Hardly a proposition," Spikes said to Clown, nose in the air. "Simply a rebuttal from the poor blind girl you so callously denigrated."

"Oh - oh yeah, _poor you_!" Nubby started snickering again. "Best one yet, Spikes."

"God damn, grant a motherfucking favour here and try not to laugh at every fucking joke she's shooting," Clown said. The rhythm of his hand stayed slow, constant. Nubby's head kept dipping, nearly resting on his shoulder.

"Ooh, am I making the clown jealous," Spikes said with relish. "Afraid of the official score in this mirth-off? And don't think the implied compliment slipped me by, Nubby! You think so highly of my capabilities already?"

"Can I plead innocence?" Nubby said. "Or inability to think when getting backrubs?" And then he held out his hand. "Also, hey, it's the trend for the night. Let's ... be friends? Again, potentially?"

"I don't know about 'friends'," Spikes said, and placed her palm on top of his. "You're _awfully sweet_."

 

1 hour 2 minutes is clearly time for an intervention  
A heavy spanner appeared a few centimetres off the floor and fell with a quiet ringing on the stone floor.

"Sarsaparilla fizz," Spikes said. "I feel patronised."

"Is that how patronisation, or is it how appearification is all flavoured?" Clown said, interested.

Nubby started untangling himself from their three-person slow-motion crash on the floor to stand up. "Not relevant! We can use that thing to get out!" He wriggled a hand loose to flap at Spikes as she made a noise of protest. "I know, I know, if they're tossing it at us it's probably no fucking use for getting out, but there might be clues for how it got in here, or at least where it came from."

"Clown," said Spikes, scooting even closer into the tangle, "I call cahoots." She squeezed her side up against Nubby, her back against one of Clown's legs and her own legs slung over his other thigh.

"All right, I can take swinging a little trust at you." Clown wrapped his arms tighter around the other boy, leaving Nubby well and truly stuck. "My feel on the matter's also how there's other important shit to be up and sorting out."

"This makes no sense," Nubby said, quiet as he tried to wish away a rising blush. "Agreeing to work together would be one thing. A sensible thing in these fucked-up circumstances. But acting like, like we have sorted out anything to do with quadrants, it counts as a critically acclaimed performance art rendition of utter absurdist fluttery fairyshit non. sense."

"I up and love making no sense. Making no sense loves me the motherfuck back." Clown spoke in a low thrum, chin on Nubby's shoulder, and made Spikes gasp as he dug his fingers into one of her thighs.

"And I have to wonder," she said, reaching round Nubby to skitter fingers over Clown's face, along the three scars that crossed it. "I have to wonder how well we knew each other, before, and what exactly it entailed. It's worth investigating!" Her grin slashed across her face as Clown patted at himself the way they'd all patted their horns in the beginning, their own appearances still a little unfamiliar on seeing dim reflections on the metal walls.

"Think these came about of you?" Clown asked.

"I wouldn't put it past you to inspire that in me," Spikes said, and squeezed Nubby around the middle in her satisfaction as Clown started looking very intent. And it just so happened that her fingers dipped down fractionally past the waist of his pamts.

Clown lowered his head to say close to Nubby's ear, "This kinda raunchalicious-mess-ness is what the motherfucker meant by being sweet, I'm thinking."

"No. No, this is pretty impolite," said Nubs, hand slipping further down Spikes's back. "Spikes, you're. Ill-mannered as fuck." Clown's hand came in on top of his and pushed them both down to right inside her pants. "You're worse! Holy shit!"

"Boorish! Uncouth! A disgrace!" She breathed in fits and starts for a second. She leaned forwards to gnaw at Clown's lips, and then pulled away to press her mouth to Nubby's - except he turned aside.

"Keeping an overly careful distance again! Will I have to call cahoots? You know what happens then," Spikes said ominously. It made Clown nuzzle into his hair and murmur, "You don't want to see how soft she can up and get? Do me a favour, Nubby, I wanna fucking see..."

"It's just." Nubby rolled his head back out of the way, looking at the ceiling. "First kiss. You know. We're - okay, we're doing this, relationships for real, we're making an effort with it. I am on board with that, but, I feel like ... it's like a first kiss. And it's just because I can't remember when else I've kissed, who and under whatever circumstances, but still, it feels like sort of a big deal... You know. I'm sorry, it's just..."

"Oh my god!" Her shriek made them flinch, and then the echoes managed to make them do it again. "I know why you, at least, are locked in here. You are clearly too adorable to be allowed outside on your own!"

He sighed. "Probably."

She kissed him on the cheek. With great passion and also tongue - but on the cheek. "I thought I was taking a chance, trying to make friends in a cage. But you!"

"And me. I started up on you, didn't I, Nubs, taking note of you all cold and too dumb to deal with it." Clown stroked his hair. "And I guessed right, me and her both in our ways, and I feel it, won't hurt none if you roll with it.

"We really should try to find a way out." Nubby put an arm around Spikes's neck and pressed a kiss to her cheek too, and took Clown's hand. "And for just now I could not give a fuck about it. We'll drag each other out of here soon enough, all right? Each one of us. And turn these into real relationships at every last second of our fucking leisure."

 

seriously  
seriously  
seriously  
seriously  
Quite reasonably seriously, I think.  
Wow  
_Mission abort_ , said the sound system. _Holy shit, there's a trap door in the ceiling, stop the ménage a crotchhop._

A rope ladder unrolled from the door. The trio conferred in hasty undertone before they broke away from each other and put their limited clothing in order. Clown was the first to go up - there was a more lemony fizz this time, and then Clown distinctly said 'Whoa' before there was a heavy thump. The other two went up as close together as possible.

*

This time Karkat was the last to wake up.

"I TOLD YOU SO," he said. "Quadrants ARE the fucking BASIS of ... all of society ... first instinct of any troll! I KNEW IT. Even if all else is stripped away, we still, we would try to make—" He passed out again.

"At least we know the laboratory computer managed to successfully restore his memories too. Or at least the ones he'd consider most important," said Rose. "I don't know if anyone has ever lost a bet as thoroughly as you, Dave."

"I can make it on a technicality," Dave said hollowly. "Karkat's terms were that any trolls would get something solid defined within an hour, even if it was 'hell no, we won't go near each other in any way, shape, or especially card suite'. And even with the clown sneaking in and messing up the expected set-up, they all only started getting serious about terms at about five minutes into the second hour."

He looked to Terezi and shook his head, waiting for a murder-lawyer crack about technicalities. She smiled back so dreamily it felt awkward, and the Mayor took her hand and patted it with a vaguely worried air.

"Maybe you shouldn't have offered Karkat the no-shirt advantage to stimulate ideas of romance," Rose said, far, far too late, and handed Gamzee and Terezi their clothes.

When Karkat woke next they were all in the computer lab. He was laid out on some of the blue-stained towels still scattered around the meteor complex, and Gamzee sat beside him.

Karkat rolled up into the hug that came at him. "Got your back. Whenever I can get to you, brother," Gamzee said, and Karkat murmured nonsense back. They hadn't even really remembered each other, and it had still turned out okay. "Bro, be assured..."

"Touching. But a little boring, don't you think?"

Gamzee craned his head around to look at Terezi, while Karkat first took the time to work up a tremendous blush.

She was aiming to look cool: she'd re-equipped her cane, which was out as prop of choice as she stood grinning, all poise. "Everyone already knew about this particularly quadrant fill. Mine, on the other hand, are new and exciting territory!"

Again, Karkat was slow, whereas Gamzee unfolded from his crouch and walked over to grab her hand over the hilt of her weapon and bite a kiss out with her.

"Well! I certainly feel welcomed to the Dark Carnival." Her voice had wavered noticeably, but she ignored it. She straightened, solemn, facing Gamzee with her nose up-tilted in a show of focus and her free hand on his shoulder. "I am Terezi Pyrope," she said. "I am this tall. And I wish to ride this ride."

"Oh my GOD," said Dave.

"Well, shit yeah, consider that motherfucking proposal stamped and signed all up in triplicate. You gonna get a new motherfucking theme anytime soon, sister? This lawyer thing makes me sound fucking dumb."

"Oh my god!" said Dave, and elbowed Rose in despair and sulking. It was hard to tell if she was snort-laughing harder because of him or Gamzee.

"What were you even doing, joining the experiment," Kanaya said to Gamzee, with no interest whatsoever in the answer.

"I'm not going to be letting my bro decide to go and forget everything without me," Gamzee said. "Can't stop a motherfucker doing what he has to. Can't let him do it alone, neither."

"How did you even hear us discussing the bet at all," she said with considerably more interest, fangs gleaming.

"Kanaya, not now!" Terezi made an expressive face at her. "I am doing big pimping."

"Then at least you haven't forgotten all my lessons," Dave said. "Although you still fail the course for making fucking total bullshit be a thing that happened. I could've won the bet free and clear, you bad student, no biscuit."

"The bullshit is not as total as it potentially could be," said Karkat. He took a hesitant step, then squared his shoulders and went to stand in front of her.

"It already means a lot that you agreed to this stupid fucking experiment in the first place. I know that was like - a sign, that you were even willing to consider a quadrant with me, and ... that's more than I deserve. But I'd still like to try. To suppress my insecurities about what it means that we only get along when our minds have been wiped clean, apparently, and also just not to be shitty when we hang out, and to be matesprits."

She kissed him on the cheek. "I would like to someday get wild and go all the way," she said. "I mean it. No kidding."

"True!" said Gamzee, and grabbed both of them. "She sets no alarms ringing on falseness in her sponge, best friend, or none that are for you to up and worry about."

"But I do worry," said Karkat, and wriggled his head free of the crush. "You two - okay, look, you have literally not been around each other more than one hour for seasons. I'm not going to argue with whatever serendipity we managed to squeeze out of a quick mindwipe. You just have to take this kismesissitude seriously, all right? It's not a game!"

"Sure it is," said Gamzee, looking from him to Terezi. "Don't see why not." And Terezi looked back at him with bare-toothed delight, chugging a hehehe out of the base of her stomach, the laugh so unguarded that even she looked embarrassed.

"It has been a long trip. Who couldn't do with a bit of fun?" she said, and Gamzee nodded back to her, smiling, watchful.

"You have made a parody of your whole species. I hope you're happy," Dave said, and held out a fist because the answer was obvious. They bunped.

 


End file.
